SAN JOSE — A person who authorities have linked to the 1982 cold-case killing of Karen Stitt, a 15-year-old Palo Alto lady kidnapped from a Sunnyvale bus cease then raped and viciously stabbed to dying, was extradited to the South Bay this previous weekend after he was arrested earlier this month in Hawaii.
Gary Gene Ramirez, 75, has been charged in Santa Clara County with homicide within the dying of Stitt, whose bare physique — certain along with her personal garments — was discovered Sept. 3, 1982 in bushes close to the previous Sunnyvale Woolworth’s retailer. She was final seen alive the earlier evening at a close-by bus cease after spending the night along with her boyfriend at Golfland.
Ramirez was escorted Saturday from Maui to San Jose by detectives with the Sunnyvale Division of Public Security, authorities mentioned. He was booked into the county Fundamental Jail and is being held with out bail.
He was scheduled to be arraigned Monday, however he was not transported to the adjoining Corridor of Justice for medical causes, authorities mentioned, whereas declining to reveal his particular ailment due to well being privateness legal guidelines. Decide Hector Ramon set a brand new arraignment date for Aug. 29 and maintained Ramirez’s no-bail standing.
The homicide cost filed Aug. 1 in opposition to Ramirez additionally carries two cost enhancements alleging the homicide occurred throughout a rape, and through a kidnapping. If convicted on all prices, Ramirez faces a sentence of life in jail with out the potential for parole.
Police mentioned Ramirez was recognized as a suspect due largely to forensic family tree, the methodology that has led to quite a few cold-case arrests throughout the nation.
The method was highlighted by the seize and conviction of the Golden State Killer. A number of different native circumstances have been reportedly solved utilizing the method up to now few years, together with the slayings of three girls at and close to Stanford College within the Nineteen Seventies — Leslie Perlov, Janet Ann Taylor and Arlis Perry — and a sequence of rapes within the Nineties attributed to a person who got here to be often known as the NorCal Rapist.
Within the case of Ramirez, Sunnyvale Detective Matthew Hutchison teamed up with a genealogist who searched public databases that individuals use to add their DNA profiles in hopes of discovering distant family members. Analyzing DNA from the blood on the wall subsequent to the place Karen was discovered and from her jacket, as effectively semen from the rape, the genealogist narrowed the pool of potential suspects to Ramirez and his three brothers.
From there, Hutchison grew to suspect Ramirez particularly, and used social media to trace down his daughter and later gather a pattern of her DNA. The investigation ultimately led to his arrest in Maui on Aug. 2; police then obtained a swab pattern from his mouth, gathering DNA they mentioned matched proof on the 1982 crime scene.
Ramirez, a Fresno native, doesn't have a prison report. After his arrest, his 79-year-old brother Rudy informed this information group that police “acquired the incorrect man.”
Rudy mentioned Ramirez moved to Maui about three many years in the past at his invitation. Earlier than that, Ramirez served within the Air Power and lived in Colorado, Utah and San Diego and hung out in San Francisco and different elements of California.
Ramirez married twice and labored odd jobs, together with as an exterminator, earlier than retiring on incapacity with a nasty hip some years in the past, his brother mentioned. Rudy mentioned he misplaced observe of his youthful brother within the Eighties, across the time of Karen’s dying, however that later that decade, when Ramirez was dwelling briefly with their mom in Fresno, he proposed that he transfer to Hawaii.